You are what you eat

This week, there was another attempt at scaring the country into doing more exercise. Inactivity was hailed as being as dangerous for us as smoking. Now these scare tactics aren’t unusual, every week we are told to stop eating one thing or another.

Just 24 hours later, eggs, once again, make it onto the ‘good foods’ list. It’s no surprise that through all this ‘you can eat that- you can’t eat this’ nonsense we are becoming a nation that is fed up of food fads, ‘brain foods’ and ‘celebrity diets’.

The UK has one of the most inactive populations with, over 60% of adults doing less than their recommended quota. Maybe with the arrival of the Olympics on our doorstep next week, we will be ‘inspired’ to do more? Maybe we will have a new society of Jessica Ennis’ in years to come.    

Being in an office, I, as you would expect, spend the majority of my day seated. Attending meetings - I’m seated, making calls - I’m seated, having lunch - I’m seated. I also very rarely make it past 10.30am without having something to eat. This has been made increasingly difficult with the level of homemade cakes and muffins sneaking into the office.

I am, however, one of those crazy people who does actually enjoy exercise – although I am currently in a lot pain after a body attack class last night (yes, it is as bad as it sounds) - but because of this, I find I can quite easily achieve the recommended two and a half hours a week.

With long, busy working days, a ready meal is the welcome home most people are after and the last thing on their mind is 100 abdominal crunches.

How much exercise we should be doing and how many vitamins we should be swallowing  changes as often as Rihanna’s hair colour, so knowing what’s best is almost impossible.  

I say, have that doughnut – just be prepared to put the work in if you want to look like Jessica Alba on the beach this summer.

 By Stephanie Rock

This is not just a cake... This is a Wordville cake

At Wordville we have something of the pioneer spirit about us- you may have noticed the Wild West influence on our website. So, when faced with Easter, we opted out of eating ourselves into a chocolate induced stupor (temporarily), and instead decided to bake a cake.

Now this was not any old cake… This was a Wordville cake. Super soft chocolate sponge and fudgey chocolate butter cream, all painstakingly iced as an edible tribute to the London morning paper- the Metro.

As we all stood gazing at our creation- the looks in our eyes similar to those mothers bestow upon their firstborns- we fell to thinking how similar baking is to creating a PR campaign and how, as consummate PR professionals, we had approached it in exactly the same way.

The Recipe/ Planning

I am yet to come across a PR campaign that did not begin with a brainstorm. Some ideas are taken up and run with; others get lost in the wash. All contribute to make the finished article what it is. Before embarking on our cake, we brainstormed, debating the weighty issues of flavour/ decoration with a sincerity normally reserved for media targets.

Baking/ Execution

Any PR campaign involves an awful lot of processes. These may vary in fun factor- making a press list is probably the PR equivalent of greasing the tray- but all are important and all must be done. Our cake presented us with a similar ‘to do’ list and to complete it, we fell into characteristic patterns of teamwork and delegation… with one small difference. At work I may be a mild mannered AAE but in the kitchen I turn into something of a baking Hitler. Soon Steph/ Pema/ Jess were weighing/ mixing/ spreading whilst I enjoyed my first taste of directorship.

Icing/ Wow-factor

I like a lemon sponge as much as the next person but put it next to a chocolate confection, oozing ganache and adorned with red berries and it will pale in comparison. Understand this basic human attraction to the ostentatious and you have PR nailed. Every campaign needs that attention grabbing wow-factor; the icing-on-the-cake that makes the public/ media sit up and listen.

As PRs, all we ever want is to make headlines. Looking at our cake I realised, yet again, that’s just what we’d done.

By Polly Robinson